


Longing

by Dogsled



Category: due South
Genre: Absence, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Moving On, Pining, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:33:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3131366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even undercover, the presence of Ray Vecchio still has ways of making itself known. Three POV vignettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Longing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Azar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/gifts).



Numbers. Why had he taken a job that meant handling numbers? Sure, he'd been handling his family's finances ever since his dad had died (long before that, to tell the truth), but this job was not - as his handlers had insisted, just the same as that with more 0s on the end. Never mind the whole rest of the time where had to be a creepy, dangerous gangster, it was the numbers that were going to kill him. Ray had to make some of them disappear, and he had to make others get bigger, and it was all a massive balancing act that was - in his opinion - far more trouble than it was worth.

Well okay, the numbers weren't the issue. The issue was when Ray got behind that desk and started grinding them, all he could think of was home; or more specifically Fraser, and the relationship he'd abandoned as quickly as it had begun. He hadn't even known what to define them as before Fraser had left for Canada again, and he still ruminated on the subject even now--even though he probably wasn't ever going to see him again. He could die easily out here. Trying to pin down what Fraser meant to him was something else, and that wasn't likely to change any time soon.

Some days he wondered, more than that, whether thousands of miles away Fraser felt the same way. He had to, didn't he? It wasn't like Ray had ever laid down any sort of ground rules. It had been rough, and tragic, and they'd fallen into bed with each other and made it go away, and then before you could say _famiglia_ Ray was gone, and Fraser was gone, and it was over-but-not-over. Had Fraser moved on? Could Ray? Dumb question, of course he couldn't. Fraser was all he could think about when he shut his eyes, which brought him right back to the problem with the numbers:

It was hard to do the books when the peace and quiet let him daydream about Mounties.

*****

Stanley wasn't getting anywhere.

He'd tried, he really had. He'd put everything into it. He'd known, though, right back when he'd met Fraser, that he couldn't let Vecchio go--not really. Sure, he'd come round as far as partnership went, but not before they'd almost tore each other limb from limb in the process. The problem was Fraser's head was elsewhere; he was working with someone else. It was something which had become painfully (literally painfully) obvious when Fraser had backed off and let him take on a guy three times his size in the boxing ring, almost getting Ray killed in the process. Maybe that would have been cool with the other guy, but it hadn't settled right with Ray.

They'd bonded in the end. Well, they'd even _more_ than bonded, Ray thought. Fraser had kissed him--not that he admitted to it. Buddy breathing was too good a cover. But Fraser still held back, even when Ray gently suggested they try it again a couple of weeks later. Fraser hadn't baulked and yelled at him - or politely apologized and explained that he preferred women - either of which would have been reasonable if he didn't like the idea. Instead he'd looked at Ray with sad eyes and said "I'm sorry, I can't," and expected that to be the end of it.

Which was a problem, really, because 'I'm sorry, I can't,' turned out to be the most heartbreaking thing Fraser could have said. It said 'Yes, I swing that way, and yes, I do like you, and yes, we could totally do something about it except for this one thing.'

And that one thing was Ray Vecchio.

*****

He was breaking his own heart as well as Ray Kowalski's, and if that fact was supposed to make him feel better it didn't. It felt like betrayal as well as self abuse, despite the fact that his efforts at rebuffing Stanley's advances were absolutely intended to avoid betrayal in the first place. Ray deserved better. Sure, they hadn't exactly defined their relationship, but the same could be said of his relationship with Victoria, and that hadn't exactly turned out in Fraser's favor either. He was sure, in fact, that were Ray there to answer his call, he would calmly remind Fraser that all he wanted was for him to be happy (in stark contrast to what Victoria had wanted for him). 

It still felt like a wrongdoing - a kind of deception - though, and not least because Stanley was Ray's replacement. He was supposed to _be_ Ray Vecchio, and should his former partner come back to find that Fraser had fulfilled even that intimate element of their former relationship with the replacement, there would be no apology strong enough to win him back.

But he loved Stanley Kowalski. He loved both of them, immensely. That just wasn't how life worked. You couldn't have everything and everyone that you wanted. You chose. Ray Vecchio might be gone forever, and they might never see each other again. Was Fraser really supposed to wait, to refuse the affection of someone who so clearly wanted him? Stanley didn't deserve that either. He'd laid his feelings on the line for just the chance that Fraser might want him too.

Which he did. He wanted him, he loved him, and if Ray loved him too then when he came back from Vegas he'd understand. He'd have to understand.

Eventually he did. Kowalski grew on you that way--grew on Ray, too, though it took longer than Fraser could have ever dreamed it would. Frustrating as it was, when it all came together, not one of them could say that they'd waited too long to make it work, and making up for lost time... Well, that was when the real fun started.

And Fraser got to be happy, which Ray didn't mind at all--even though defining their relationship got more complicated rather than less.


End file.
